Inside Syria: A Rebel Stand That May Not Be Enough

As a "cease-fire" crumbles into massacre, sectarian violence, and perhaps full-on civil war, the Free Syrian Army has taken up arms amidst the Assad regime. Two war correspondents recently travelled to the outskirts of hell to find out if the local opposition can protect a country on their own.By Benjamin Hall /// Photographs by Rick Findler

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By now, the atrocities are well-known. More than 100 dead over the weekend in the Western village of Houla. Another 13 men found near the Eastern city of Dair Alzour. But in the Northern province of Idlib — where we raced alongside them, from caves to under-fire communities, from car-jackings to mountainous hideouts — the Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters are attempting to hold their ground.

Crossing back and forth from Turkey under the cover of darkness, they deliver medicine and essentials; ammo and guns — wherever they can find guns, they do. It is one of the only regions that remains under tentative rebel control, and in that it may offer a sliver of hope. The cease-fire was laughed off by these men long ago, and Assad’s guards open fire right over the border to prevent the smuggling, but this is what supplying the fight looks like, if the rest of the world isn’t going to.

One thing all of these men know is that to become a viable opposition in the country — and, perhaps more importantly now, to gain the support of the West — the FSA needs to be seen as more than just a motley group of scouts. “We must have discipline here,” Ali says, “or we cannot be an army.”

They patrol in three-hour shifts, follow an up-and-town chain of command, and attend regular meetings. They coordinate with each other across the region using a variety of SIM-cards, though prefer meeting face-to-face when at all possible. Russia’s ambassador may insist that “we are not one-sided,” but Syria still gets nearly all its technology from there, and fears are rising that open lines, like supply chains, are being slowly cut off.